The greatest album of all time, according to Kyle Broflovski of ‘South Park’
For almost 30 years now, South Park has largely maintained its relevance by making enemies, identifying hypocrisy in every nook and cranny of the culture and sending their innocent child avatars, plus Cartman, to engage in a morality play with it.
It’s a much rarer occasion for the show’s creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, to reveal an irony-free admiration for something, let alone a shameless over-the-top fandom. Even their oft-mentioned support of the NFL’s Denver Broncos is presented as more of a love-hate relationship.
Way back in season one of the series, however, in an episode that first aired on February 18th, 1998, Parker and Stone fan-boyed out in a way they arguably never would again.
As many ageing millennials will probably recall, the penultimate episode of South Park’s first season was titled ‘Mecha-Streisand’, and involved what was then a very real concern among millions of young people: that Barbara Streisand would transform herself into a giant Japanese kaiju monster and try to destroy the world.
Thankfully, when the day finally came, the boys of South Park were able to fight off Mecha-Streisand with the help of the one musician capable of turning into an even more powerful kaiju. This was, naturally, Robert Smith of The Cure.
“I can’t let Barbara Streisand do this to the entire world,” says the very real Robert Smith, who had agreed to make a voice cameo on the show at a time when it was still a completely new phenomenon. The cartoon version of Smith then spins himself into a giant Mothra-like creature and defeats Mecha-Streisand with a “sonic scream” and a “Robert punch”, inspiring a normally unimpressed Eric Cartman to shout, “Robert Smith kicks ass!”
Jesus Christ, also famously a South Park resident at the time, calls Smith “our saviour!”
A very ridiculous comedy sequence takes a slightly different turn at the end when the triumphant Robert Smith walks off into the sunset, and Kyle Broflovski, the eight-year-old stand-in for Matt Stone, proudly proclaims that “Disintegration is the best album ever!” No punchline there. That’s just South Park bowing before a genuine musical hero, and tossing out a helpful record recommendation to its young audience at the same time.
The Cure’s Disintegration wasn’t even a decade old at this point, but the 1989 album had already solidified its status as one the band’s finest works, with the singles ‘Lullaby’, ‘Pictures of You’, and ‘Lovesong’ all ranking among their best known and beloved songs.
As for how Robert Smith wound up agreeing to appear on this upstart, low-budget, foul-mouthed cartoon?
“[Trey and Matt] sent me two episodes with a note asking me to participate,” Smith told USA Today in a 2000 interview, “I thought the show was hilarious and I was flattered to be involved… One of the episodes had George Clooney as a gay dog, so I thought they probably wanted me to be a gay cat or something.”
Smith was surprised when he found out he’d actually be playing a slightly more magical version of himself. “It was an added bonus because it impressed the younger members of my extended family,” he said, adding, “They think being in South Park is what I do for a living. It was surreal inhabiting that world with Cartman. I’m glad I was the hero.”
